Tag Archives: Sunset-Vine BID

Documents

I’m pleased to announce our new Documents page, also available through the menu on the header in all its arboreally structured glory. We hope to build this into a repository of records we obtain under the California Public Records Act. So far we just have one item prepared for publication, a report by Steve Seyler of Andrews International Security to the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID. This is the document that Kerry Morrison originally refused to let me read at the meeting. I can see why she was reluctant because it’s not pretty. We’ve redacted it here to try to preserve some shreds of dignity in an ugly set of circumstances. Of course the unredacted original is available on request from Kerry.

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The Trees and the Forest

Beheaded jacaranda tree on Vine Street
Beheaded jacaranda tree on Vine Street
See Sarah Besley, Carol Massie, and Kerry Morrison discuss the Vine Street tree vandal. Tree vandalism is antisocial and upsetting and the suspect should be arrested and tried, but why this zeal to charge it as a felony? The fact that the BID is talking to a prosecutor, who’s “willing to work with them,” about upping the charge even though the amount of damage hasn’t yet hit the required threshold evinces a lack of respect for the law and suggests that the BID has public officials willing to bend the law on their behalf. As far as we’re concerned, these BID folks are all serial misdemeanants for their Brown Act violations. Their victims don’t have prosecutors willing to even charge the BID people, let alone “work with them” to twist the law around to charge them as felons, even though their crimes affect quality of life in Hollywood far more than tree vandalism does. The vandalized trees might be beams in the eye of the vandal, but the BID has a forest in its own eye, which it evidently can’t see for the trees.
Continue reading The Trees and the Forest

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Photo ID required to attend Sunset-Vine BID meeting, hear about tree vandalism

As mentioned briefly below, I attended and filmed a meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID on Tuesday, October 14, 2014. It was held in the Pickford Center of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Vine Street. I was required by the Academy’s security guard to produce my driver’s license and to allow him to record my name and DL number in order to gain entrance to the meeting. As long-time readers of this blog know, the Brown Act states that:
Continue reading Photo ID required to attend Sunset-Vine BID meeting, hear about tree vandalism

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Our brand new YouTube channel

Hello world! We have a YouTube channel and we know how to use it! Look there for the latest video news about the three Hollywood area BIDs. Our inaugural video is a mind-numbingly boring 48 minute slab of beef showing today’s meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID Board of Directors at the Mary Pickford Center of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Vine Street. Watch the whole thing at your peril. We’ll be commenting on a few choice clips as we have time. You can watch the video embedded after the break if you prefer…
Continue reading Our brand new YouTube channel

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Seyler: Arrest ’em all to send a message (updated)

Steve Seyler explains it all for you
Steve Seyler explains it all for you
Steve Seyler, high muckamuck of security at Andrews International, gave a lengthy report at yesterday morning’s meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID and Hollywood Entertainment District Joint Security Committee meeting.

Continue reading Seyler: Arrest ’em all to send a message (updated)

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Hollywood BIDs flout the Brown Act (updated)

I attended my first meeting of the Sunset-Vine BID and Hollywood Entertainment District Joint Security Committee meeting this morning.  It was held in a restaurant called “Cleo” located in The Redbury Hotel.  I’ll have more to say about the actual content of the meeting later.  For now I’ll just talk about scandalous violations of the Brown Act, a California law regulating public meetings.
Continue reading Hollywood BIDs flout the Brown Act (updated)

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